


A Minute To Learn, A Lifetime To Master

by sabinelagrande



Series: Setbacks [2]
Category: Marvel 616, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Evil, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Bad People, Bad Things Happening To Bad People, Brief Reference To Assisted Suicide, Canon-Typical Violence, Collars, Comic Book Science, Crapsack World, Dark Clint Barton, Dark Natasha Romanov, Dark Phil Coulson, Dark Steve Rogers, Eventual Clint Barton/Steve Rogers, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Face Slapping, Good Things Happening To Bad People, James Rhodes Is a Good Bro, Kneeling, M/M, Mirror Universe, Morally Ambiguous Nick Fury, More Than Usual, Non-Consensual Spanking, One-Sided Phil Coulson/Steve Rogers - Freeform, Past Child Abuse, Shock Training, Warnings Will Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-15
Updated: 2013-08-16
Packaged: 2017-12-23 13:07:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/926816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabinelagrande/pseuds/sabinelagrande
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint's got to clear his name, and in this world, he'll use any means necessary to do it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks/most of the blame goes to my co-conspirator [bendingwind](http://ao3.org/users/bendingwind), because a whole lot of this is her fault. Additional warnings will be added as the story continues; please consult the tags before reading or comment if you have concerns.

For some reason, what's pissing Clint off the most is that his collar locks with a fucking Allen wrench, like he's a piece of cheap furniture.

Then again, it isn't far off from the truth. The only difference is that he's a little more mobile, and that he'd essentially been free of charge.

\--

Clint could tell there were too many eyes on him when he walked towards Director Fury's office, but he had no idea why. He'd learned that glaring back was nothing but a sign of weakness. It was better to seem like you either didn't notice or didn't care- if they thought you didn't care, they didn't get the satisfaction of intimidating you, and if they thought you didn't notice, it was the perfect time to take them out.

He rapped on the door of the Director's office, and it slid open. Fury was standing across the room, looking out of the window, his hands behind his back. It was a gesture of trust, Clint knew; he also knew that the Director wore more Kevlar than a SWAT team and wouldn't have the slightest problem dodging anything Clint could throw at him, short of an explosive.

"Sir," Clint said, as the door shut behind him.

Fury sighed, his shoulders slumping slightly, and Clint knew something was very wrong. "You could have come to me first."

"Sir?" Clint said again, confused.

"You could have come to me, and I could have made it go away. Instead you lied to me and planted falsified records." Fury turned, looking at him. "You should have let us do it. We're better at it than you are."

\--

There are people gawking at him again as he follows Coulson down the hallway, some who must have heard already, some who are clearly shocked. Clint guesses he's going to have to get used to it. He was never actually in the freak show, but he's known since he was a kid what it's like to be singled out, to have people paying attention to him, marking his movements. He kind of hates it sometimes, really, but here he is, stuck in it again, at least until he starts being old news.

\--

Clint furrowed his brow. "Sir, I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Your birth records," Fury said. "You weren't born free." Clint stared at him, his eyes wide in shock. "The history as a runaway should have been a tip-off, but I chose not to question it."

"I ran away because my dad beat us," Clint told him. "I was born free."

"That's not what the records say," Fury said. He held up a hand. "You're going to ask why I can't just replace the records now. It won't do you any good when the entire ship knows."

It clicked in Clint's head. "Romanov."

Fury nodded. "Romanov made the discovery, and she wasn't quiet about it."

"You mean that Romanov planted the information," Clint said, crossing his arms. Not for the first time he found himself wishing he'd obeyed orders and taken the shot, not captured Romanov and brought her in. No matter how useful she was for SHIELD, she deserved to be dead for this, or worse.

Clint was going to try for worse.

"It's her against you," Fury said. "You bring me the proof she's wrong, all this goes away."

Clint snorted. "Sir, you know as well as I do that she didn't leave a single track."

"That sounds to me like a personal problem," Fury told him.

\--

Clint knows what he's expected to do is keep his head down, be deferent; he also knows that no one _actually_ expects him to do that. They expect him to fight back, to lash out against what he's been hit with, but so far he hasn't. If he's going to be honest with himself, Clint has no idea what to do, torn between wanting to follow his fighting instincts and wanting to prove how unpredictable he really is.

Coulson rounds a corner. Every time they turn, Clint expects to see Romanov's face, to see her waiting to mock him. He knows that she's too good, though; she's not the type of killer who comes back to visit the body.

\--

"So now what?" Clint asked, hiding the fear lancing through him with a mask of annoyance. 

"I like you, Barton, so I'm going to give you three options," Fury said. "You can be claimed immediately by SHIELD and remain as a subordinate agent, or you can go to auction."

"That's only two," Clint pointed out, "and thank you, sir, but fuck both of them."

"Alternately, I can shoot you in the head right now," Fury said, not unkindly. "Clean shot. I'll even say you went down fighting." 

A bullet sounded pretty damn good in that moment. He'd thought the threat of being knocked down to slave class was behind him once he joined SHIELD. Before, Clint had always kinda ended up in situations where getting snatched and sold was a job hazard, and he'd lived in fear of the moment when it would actually happen, when he'd lose himself. But even as horrible as it sounded, Clint had spent his entire life trying not to die, and fuck if he was going to roll over and do it now.

Fury looked Clint in the eye. "Pick one. I didn't have to give you any options at all."

Clint opened his hands. "You break it, you bought it."

Fury nodded. "Good choice," he said.

"You were also going to shoot me if I'd said I wanted to go to auction, weren't you, sir?" Clint said.

Fury smiled grimly. "Got it in one."

"So since murder's not in my future, what do I have to look forward to?" Clint asked.

"Not much," a voice said, as a figure detached itself from the darkness in the corner and stepped forward.

\--

Coulson reaches a door, leaning forward to activate the retinal scan and the thumbprint lock. Clint wants to slam Coulson's head against the wall while he's not paying attention, make a break for it, but where the fuck would he go? What the fuck would he do when he got there?

He almost does it anyway.

Coulson leads him through the door into a nondescript set of living quarters. Nothing fancy at all; the only thing that indicates that the room might belong to a senior agent is that there's an extra door on the wall, next to the bathroom. Coulson walks over and opens it with his thumb, and Clint knows very well that it's keyed to Coulson and Coulson alone, accessible to no one except him, barring the Director's supposedly secret remote overrides. Clint also knows that there's no lock on the inside, no way out without the door being deliberately left open for him.

"You'll be staying here," Coulson tells him, showing him the tiny, bare, windowless room, and Clint's just glad Coulson's seen fit to give him some sheets and a pillow.

"Do I get turndown service? Continental breakfast?" Clint says, but Coulson doesn't seem to find it very funny.

"This doesn't have to be hard, Barton," Coulson says.

"I think we both know it's gonna be," Clint says, and Coulson just shrugs.

\--

Clint had his sidearm drawn in a fraction of a second; it was only through an intense amount of training that he resisted the urge to fire. "For fuck's sake, Coulson," he sighed, holstering his weapon. "You're gonna give somebody a fucking heart attack doing that shit."

Coulson walked towards him, smiling the bland, vaguely unpleasant smile that he always did, and all at once Clint knew what was happening, his stomach rolling. Coulson slapped him sharply in the face. "I don't think you should talk to me like that, do you?" Clint was speechless for a moment- a moment too long, because then Coulson's fingers were around his throat. "I asked you a question."

Of course it was Coulson, who the fuck else would it be but Coulson, Fury's good eye, who was only not in the Director's position because of his fierce loyalty to Fury. Coulson, Clint's handler, who kept it strictly on the level but who had wandering, less than comforting eyes. Coulson, SHIELD's dark horse, who hid his capacity for brutality well enough that most people didn't know about it until it was far too late.

_Fuck._

"No," Clint said. Coulson's hand tightened in warning, and Clint shut his eyes. "No, Master."

Coulson let him go. "Smart boy."

"Thank you for shortening what would have been a very awkward conversation, Agent Coulson," Fury said dryly. 

"My pleasure, Director," Coulson said, smirking at Clint.

"Get him settled," Fury told Coulson. "I don't need this bullshit taking up any more of my valuable time."

Coulson let Clint go, and Clint rubbed his throat, wondering how much longer he'd be able to touch his own skin without meeting the cold band of a collar. "Yes, Director," Coulson said. "With me," he snapped at Clint, walking out of the office.

\--

"Range time in twenty," Coulson tells him. "Your new uniform is in the closet," he adds, walking out and leaving Clint alone.

Except for the addition of a red badge on his sleeve, Clint's subordinate uniform doesn't actually look that different than the one he's been wearing since he got here. It doesn't have to for everyone to know what's happened to him- the collar is doing that very well all on its own. What's different about it is inside, the fine mesh connected to the tiny transponder in the pocket, the thing Coulson can light up with electricity whenever he thinks it's necessary.

Clint puts it on. What the fuck else is he supposed to do?


	2. Chapter 2

Clint sits at the conference table, fidgeting with his pen as he waits for everyone to get their shit together. Clint can often be found with his shit not together, but today he just wants to get all this over with. He's not really sure why, because he's certain this will be the high point of his day, possibly his week, but something about it is making him itch.

The hardest part of the whole thing- the hardest part _so far_ \- was walking into this room. Of all the people in the world, these are the ones he needs the respect of the most, the ones he can't lose face in front of, and here he is in a fucking collar, clearly marked as less than them, more so than usual.

It could have been worse. Carol and Luke looked like they barely noticed, but Steve gave him a cold, calculating look, something behind it that Clint didn't like at all. Bobbi just looked at him like she was frustrated with him, like she thought it was probably a mess he'd gotten himself into; that summed up his and Bobbi's relationship pretty neatly.

It was Rhodes he had to look away from. There was nothing on his face but pity, and Clint wanted to punch him until it went away.

"If we can begin?" Maria says, and the general clamor of the room dies. She presses a button, and a map appears on the massive screen behind her, points lighting up as she speaks. "We have reports in from units all over the globe of new gamma-related incidents."

"It's AIM," Tony says. Tony's not on the team and never will be; no one in their right mind would let Tony Stark be an Avenger unless they wanted the team to be a wholly owned subsidiary of Pepper Potts, but when a genius billionaire pays your bills and builds your tech, you humor him. "What?" he says, when everyone just looks at him. "Doesn't matter what it is, it's always AIM."

"If you'll let me continue?" Maria says, annoyed, and Tony waves a hand at her. "What we're seeing is the development of a rudimentary gamma weapons technology program. I need to know who, why, and how."

"Why's easy," Luke says.

"Big gun wins," Carol adds.

"And as long as I have anything to say about it, we will always have the biggest one," Maria says coldly, leaning forward and putting her hands on the table, glaring at all of them. "That is our mission, and we will adhere to it to the last." She straightens, a look on her face like nothing ever happened. "I'd like to introduce you to Doctor Bruce Banner," she says, indicating the unfamiliar, unassuming man sitting next to her. He smiles, looking bashful, like he's not used to attention, and gives them a little wave. "Doctor Banner is a world expert in gamma radiation. He'll be providing assistance with this operation."

"Any way I can help," Banner says. There's something off about him, and Clint can feel it immediately; he looks at Bobbi, and her barely-perceptible nod says she knows it too. 

"This mission will remain as quiet as possible for as long as possible," Maria tells him. "Rogers, Rhodes, I want you on strategy only until we're ready to make a statement." Steve nods. "I've uploaded further intel for you. Doctor Banner's here for the gaps. Figure it out, and don't fuck it up."

She leaves, and Doctor Banner turns, looking at them. "Well, you've got me," he says, wringing his hands absently. "Without a background in gamma radiation, the materials are a little opaque, so I'd be happy to walk you through them."

Clint leans forward. "Cap, I'd advise we start with-"

Steve looks at him. "No one asked you, Barton," he says.

Clint opens his mouth to tell him to fuck off, but before he can say a word, he stops, realizing that he can't. His next realization is that everyone has been waiting for this moment, including Steve. They're all looking at him except Rhodes, who's looking down at his tablet, obviously avoiding the situation. Banner has one eyebrow raised, like he's not sure why a subordinate is causing all this trouble, and Clint doesn't know whether he wishes Banner knew or not.

Clint can't bring himself to apologize, to do whatever respectful thing he should do; he says nothing instead, which thankfully seems to satisfy Steve. Clint's not sure what would have happened if it hadn't. He just knows it wouldn't have been pretty.

"We'd appreciate it, Doctor," Steve tells Banner.

"Great," Banner says, as if he doesn't notice the tension in the room, and begins his lecture. Clint listens. Apparently he's not allowed to do anything else.

\--

Whoever made Clint's collar clearly didn't give much of a fuck about their work. There's this one seam on the inside of the black, anti-ballistic plastic, right in the wrong place, right where Clint can't forget about it, right where it's bound to leave a mark. Clint spins it around, looking for a place to put it so it won't be on the back of his neck, hoping Coulson won't give a fuck if his collar's all out of whack- Clint can barely even tell that it's wrong.

This is what's playing in Clint's head as he walks back into Coulson's quarters after finishing at the Tower; it's easier than thinking about anything else. Clint's going to have to get his head straight quick and in a hurry, but he thinks under the circumstances that he can give himself a little while to ruminate on how very fucked he is.

Coulson is sitting in his chair, studying some kind of paperwork. When he sees Clint, he beckons, pointing at the floor in front of him before looking back down at his tablet. When Clint doesn't move, Coulson looks up, with the 'you have thirty seconds' expression on his face that Clint has grown so familiar with. "Was I somehow unclear, Barton?" he says, with mock patience.

The smart thing to do, Clint is well aware, is to walk over there and get on his knees. Clint is a smart man who often knows what the smart thing to do is; Clint is also a smart enough man to know that his track record of doing smart things is not exactly stellar.

"So this is when the programming starts?" Clint sneers, staying right where he is. "You ready to turn me into a good little agent, sir?"

"This is an unfortunate situation," Coulson says, standing up and putting down his tablet, and Clint only barely bites back his retort- unfortunate doesn't even begin to start to _think_ about covering it. "I'm not losing an operative just because I gained a slave. No matter what anyone else wants from you, I want your field performance to be largely unaffected, and that is my decision to make." The corner of his mouth lifts. "Outside of the field, I just expect you to learn a little civility."

"Oh, is that all?" Clint says facetiously.

"If you're trying to make me beat you, Barton, I'll do it gladly," Coulson snaps.

Clint doesn't give the slightest hint of a fuck about getting beaten up, but getting an actual beating is a very different proposition, one that does something unpleasant to his insides. It isn't even like when he was a kid, when he could run and hide; if Coulson wants to fuck him up, he damn well will, even if he has to tie Clint down to do it.

"If you can't learn to be civil, then we'll just have to discuss how to go about making you," Coulson continues, sounding as unconcerned as if he's discussing what's for lunch. "Do you want to be a puppet like Stark? The only reason we keep him around is that he's smart enough to be incredibly dangerous. You're not as smart as he is, so I'd advise you take this as the gift it is."

"A _gift?_ " Clint says, getting up in Coulson's face. "You fucking listen here, Coulson-"

Coulson's backhand sends Clint reeling, clutching at his cheek. Before Clint even knows what he's doing, he launches himself at Coulson. Coulson has clearly been expecting it; Clint goes too high, and Coulson goes low, catching him in the stomach. He drives Clint back, shoving him hard enough that Clint loses his balance. Clint recovers before Coulson comes at him again, but not enough; Coulson manages to spin him around and slam him down against the desk, one hand on his neck, the other hand neatly snapping a pair of cuffs around his wrists, binding them so that his hands are on the other side of one of the desk's legs.

Coulson reaches around him, undoing his fly before yanking his pants and underwear down over his hips. "I really didn't want to have to go through this shit today," Coulson says, "but you've forced my hand."

"Are you going to fucking _spank_ me?" Clint pants, incredulous, though he's not real sure why he's so surprised.

"I told you I'd beat you if I had to," Coulson says, walking away. "Repeat what I told you."

"Fuck you," Clint spits, shutting his eyes tight and putting his face against the desk. At least it isn't like when he was a kid; his dad just used his fists.

"That's not it," Coulson says, walking back, and Clint hears a loud smack. "I only thought that part."

Before Clint can smart off again, something hits his ass, hard enough to make him yell. It takes him a second to figure out that it's a paddle, because all it feels like is fire, lancing across his skin and into his flesh. It doesn't get any better from there; Coulson knows how to make it really awful, alternating smacking the hell out of him with sporadic, rhythmless blows, spread out wide enough that Clint keeps convincing himself it's over.

"You said you'd beat me," Clint says finally, hating how much like a sob it sounds.

"Excuse me?" Coulson says, and the goddamn paddle stops, thank god.

"You said you'd beat me," Clint says again. "You said to repeat what you told me."

Coulson's hand is hot on the small of his back, and Clint fights the urge to shake him off. "Good," he says, and Clint hopes like fuck that he just passed the test. "You can do well if you want, Barton. It's up to you how awful this is."

Clint thinks about the plans starting to rise up in his mind, all the things he's going to need to do to get out of this, to get his life back. "Yeah," he says. "It is."

"I'm going to let you go," Coulson says, setting the paddle down right in Clint's line of sight, a warning. "I hope you've learned that it's not worth it to fight me. I know you'll do it again, but try to keep it to a minimum. We have work to do." Clint nods, and he tries not to think about how easy it would be to get Coulson on his back while he's bending down to unlock the handcuffs.

Clint stands up, pulling up his pants and zipping up his fly; he probably flashes Coulson in the process, but he has this suspicion that it won't be the last time Coulson sees. Coulson looks him over critically, and Clint tries not to squirm under his scrutiny. Coulson finally nods at Clint's collar. "Find some sandpaper for that burr. You're going to cut yourself."

"Yes, Master," Clint says.

"I'm not sadistic, Clint," Coulson says, in what he probably thinks is a gentle voice. "I don't enjoy being cruel to you."

 _You keep on telling yourself that,_ Clint says to himself, but for once he keeps his trap shut. In his own way, Coulson is maybe one of the most sadistic people Clint knows; how long has he been thinking about exactly how he'd treat Clint if he had free rein to do anything he wanted to him?

Coulson walks back over to his chair, picking up his tablet and sitting down. "I have specifics of the operation in Orange Walk to discuss with you."

Clint walks over, and it takes everything in him to go to his knees; he just hopes he won't have to do it long enough for it to become natural. It hurts way more than he expected when his reddened ass touches his heels, and he tries not to give Coulson the satisfaction of seeing him grimace. "Yes, Master."

Coulson doesn't praise him for obeying, just nods. Clint listens attentively, assessing the plans that Coulson lays out for him, picking out holes and problems, making sure every aspect of the plan is flawless. What else Clint's planning, Coulson doesn't need to know.

**Author's Note:**

> The story only gets darker from here, folks. If you anticipate something problematic for you happening, please comment and I'll advise you as to whether or not it does.


End file.
